Partick Mayberry
Singer/songwriter Patrick Mayberry never truly understood the power of worship music until he experienced it firsthand at a Passion conference. His YoungLife leader invited him to the annual gathering for college students, which has morphed into a larger movement that’s birthed some of Christian music’s most respected artists, such as Chris Tomlin, Crowder, Kristian Stanfill and Matt Redman. For many, Passion is a multi-day spiritual wake-up call to the things of God. For Mayberry, Passion was a transformational awakening to the intersection of faith and music.
That was nearly 15 years ago. Today, Mayberry is on the cusp of embarking on an artistic journey he never quite felt qualified to pursue. Signed to Centricity Publishing as a writer since 2018, the Cookeville, Tenn. native has penned songs recorded by North Point Worship, David Leonard, Mack Brock, David Dunn, Jonny Diaz, Joel Vaughn and Chris Renzema, among others. In addition, he’s garnered sync placements with T-Mobile, NBA, the “TODAY” show and more. To date, Mayberry has released two EPs independently with 2018’s Joy and 2019’s Live In My Living Room, the latter of which he partnered with Centricity Music to re-release in 2020. Mayberry, his wife Jenny, and their four children recently relocated from Chicago to Franklin, Tenn., where he now remotely serves as Executive Producer of Worship for Chicago’s Soul City Church. Mayberry’s path to becoming an artist, however, has been a long and winding road.
Growing up in the Church of Christ denomination, Mayberry was discouraged from enjoying music with instrumentation in worship settings. Therefore, his growing love of guitar felt disconnected from his growing love of Jesus. As he transitioned from middle school to high school while playing the guitar riffs of his idols, Jimi Hendrix and Grateful Dead, he found like-minded friends through his local YoungLife chapter, which consistently merged music and faith.
His collegiate years—a period of time Mayberry calls a “dark season”—proved pivotal. “I was still very much figuring out faith and figuring out, really, what every college kid’s trying to figure out: What am I even here for? What’s my purpose?” he recalls.
The answer came at Passion ’06. “That was my first experience with corporate worship on a bigger scale. It’s funny, because I really was clueless and just kind of a sponge, wide-eyed, taking it all in,” Mayberry says of the conference. “I felt like that’s when the Lord was showing me, ‘This is how you could use music for the Church. If you wanted to do this, I think this would be a cool way for you to use your music.’ So I fell in love with worship music.”
